Nels Cline

"This is my main Jazzmaster, this is the first one I ever owned," Cline says in this premier guitar interview at (0:10). "I bought it from Mike Watt, my friend, inspiration, a fearless bass player," he said. "I've broken virtually everything on it at some point except for the knobs and the pickups," the Wilco guitarist said. "It has a Mastery bridge, as virtually all my guitars- Jaguars and Jazzmasters - have the Mastery bridge so the strings don't move around...The reason I love Jazzmasters," he says, "is everything about the shape, the feel of the guitar, the sound, strings behind the bridge, and virtual indestructibility."

"My guitar (the second one here, the 1959 Fender Jazzmaster) was purchased in the summer of 1995 from Mike Watt after the first tour by The Crew of the Flying Saucer. I had used my old '66 Jaguar on Watt's first solo record and really didn't know the difference between a Jaguar and a Jazzmaster other than the different pickups and switching configurations. I didn't know then that 1959 is one of the best years for Jazzmasters, and that this would end up being my favorite guitar. I first chose both Jazzmasters and Jaguars for their feel and because they have strings behind the bridge and single-coil pickups. I was copying Sonic Youth and Tom Verlaine, basically. But when I finally played the Jazzmaster, I was smitten with the whole feeling of the neck and body, the sound, and the inherent durability. Watt engraved his name on the base of the neck where it joins the body and on the base of the tremolo assembly. He engraves everything!

This guitar has done more tours and records than I can count: all the Mike Watt tours, the Geraldine Fibbers tours and Butch album, later records with the Fibbers' CarlaBozulich and Scarnella, dozens of recordings by various improvised projects, including all my solo records since The Inkling, tours with Wilco, and all three records I made with them. This guitar mostly lives in Chicago in the Wilco loft now, and I have a different '59 at home in Los Angeles so that I don't always have to fly back and forth with it. I have been extremely hard on it, as you can see — it was in perfect shape when I got it. I play hard. There is actually a very deep and ever-deepening gouge above where the strings stretch from the bridge to the tailpiece, where I play a lot and, apparently, with considerable vigor!

Admittedly, the finish was delicate. It is easy to scratch the paint, revealing a purplish hue, much like eggplant. I used to wear my keys on my pant loop, and after hopping up and down on stage with Watt, I created an interesting and rather sizable stippling on the back of the guitar. In the Geraldine Fibbers, I would sometimes throw the guitar to our drummer Kevin Fitzgerald and play my effects pedals while he savaged it with drumsticks, sometimes ripping out the strings, which is difficult to do on a Fender guitar, and bleeding on it. I have bled on it plenty. The Geraldine Fibbers' "Dusted" caused some wounds, and these days Wilco's song "A Shot in the Arm" might be another danger, though I am much smarter now about things like fret wear. The body, well ... I think it looks great. It's a work in progress, just like me." - Spin Magazine, 2011

Nels Cline uses a Boss Compressor Sustainer to squish his sound. "People laugh at [it], but I still love [it]," Cline says at (25:00), "particularly because it just squishes on with their latch switch thing."

"When I started playing with Wilco, I went through the many pedals lying around the Wilco loft looking for EVEN MORE DISTORTION SOURCES. Jeff Tweedy had this, an early '69, and he let me have it. One of the things I look for in any distortion device is MASSIVE GAIN. I need stuff that won't get QUIETER when you hit it, and frankly a shocking number of fuzzboxes and the like are super wimpy in this regard. The '69 (new one pictured here - Jeff's broke, and I need it because this new one sounds different…) just makes the grade. Check my Wilco setting: EVERYTHING ALL THE WAY UP."

"Grolsch... started sending us beer at one point, so we could get a lot more of these." As Nels explains, around the 14:25 mark in this video, he uses the washers from Grolsch bottles as strap locks to keep his guitar from falling off, "which," he says, "seems to happen to me all the time."

"The lynchpin of my sound tends to be the Klon Centaur Overdrive," Cline says at (29:15). "It has a kind of legendary status, almost infamous at this point because they're almost impossible to get and cost a ton of money...It's like having an amp in a pedal, it has a very transparent quality," he said.

“The Ugly Face. It’s made by an art professor in San Francisco. It’s one of the most extreme, bizarre, wonderful fuzz boxes ever. Henry’s turned me on to some good pedals in his day; he’s the guy who first showed me the [Klon] Centaur Overdrive, which is one of my main things, and he was the first guy to show me the [Z.Vex] Fuzz Factory, which is another one that I use.” - Fretboard Journal interview.

"I always use the Zvex Fuzz Factory," Cline says in this Premier Guitar interview at (26:10), "which most people recognize at being really strange, and intense, and uncontrollable."

"Tim Schroeder brought one of his amps to the Wilco loft one day, and I played on of his 30 watt - 40 watt heads...I played this amp and it absolutely blew my mind," Nels Cline says at (18:50). "I'm always looking for low mids- a rich sound...it was just an amazing sounding amp," he said.

In this video Nels Cline and Julian Lage are using ZT Lunchbox amps.

Wilco guitarist Nels Cline uses a Korg Kaoss 2 Pad "for Echoplex and Space Echo effects just by touching the screen...It's a DJ device, it does a million things," he said.

"Hot Cake: Scott Amendola gave me this little beauty from New Zealand. When I joined Wilco, I made sure to put this on my board IN ADDITION to my cherished Klon Centaur Overdrive because I wanted to sculpt many overdriven subtleties. Little did I realize that the Marshall JTM 45 I would use with Wilco would fall in LOVE with the Hot Cake! Together, they rule! The Hot Cake works less well with high-wattage amps like a Twin Reverb. It actually sounds like crap. But with that Marshall…!!!"

"ProCo Rat has been modified for a little extra poop. The LED is now yellow. The sound is not as fabulous as my old Marshall Guv'nor, but I'm adjusting."

Nels Cline was approached by Bill Henss of Henss guitars, who built this custom rosewood Jazzmaster-style guitar to compliment Jeff Tweedy's rosewood Telecaster. "I thought, for one thing, they were insane, but beyond that, I thought 'Sure! Why not?'" Cline said in this Premier Guitar interview at (3:00). "The only thing I asked them to do was put equidistant crosss inlays...and no, I am not Swiss," he said. The guitar has an extra Stratocaster pickup, and "Duncan antiquities [P90] pickups, which I really, really like," Cline said.

"Runner up in the 'Super Cool' and 'Original Delay Dept.': the new Catalinbread Echorec, which has wild multi-delays and warble modeled on the classic Binson Echorec—beautiful. And it's small!"

In this video from EarthQuaker Devices, Nels Cline demos the Astral Destiny.

"Though still just bubbling under the large wave of boutique effects pedals, JAM pedals' work stands out ! I am particularly fond of The Rattler, as I have been on the prowl for toneful yet high-gain distortion. There are plenty of fuzzboxes out there these days (and JAM has some good ones, too) but few distortion boxes. The Rattler has that fat, creamy sound/sustain yet doesn't have to be turned up all the way step out when full-on raging is required!"

Throughout this video, Cline can be seen playing the Hofner 457/12 electric guitar.

Cline's modified 1969 Jaguar, affectionately called the "Silver Bastard", is heavily souped-up with an Aztec Silver paint job and a mirrored pickguard. His go-to "guitar-guru/friend" John "Woody" Woodland installed (in addition to his beloved Mastery bridge) a pair of custom-wound pickups -- a Seymour Duncan Charlie Christian pickup in the neck position and a super-hot Jaguar pickup in the bridge position.

References: 15:27 to 17:00 in video https://youtu.be/7GRSH8yxWjc http://www2.fender.com/experience/artists/interesting-mods-nels-clines-69-jaguar/

Played live on tour 2021

wilco pedal board 2017

Wilco guitarist Nels Cline also plays a Jerry Jones model Neptune 12 string guitar. "He made Danelectro style guitars out of Nashville," Cline says at (6:30). "I love Jerry Jones' guitars, all of them...it's one of the speediest 12-strings to play," he said. "I've never played a 12 string that played so easily and sounded so glassy and delicious as the Jerry Jones."

"This is a beautiful time for boutique effects pedals, and there are so many great ones out there, and I love them: the Fulltone '69 (classic), Uglyface (ultra-wild), Creepy Fingers MkI (classic), Catalinbread Octapussy (classic), Mid-Fi Electronics Random Number Generator (super sick), and the Devi Ever Soda-Meiser and/or White Spider (classic and sick) are just a few favorites. But the one I always bring along is the Z.Vex Fuzz Factory."

"I have an Impala, and it's my favorite Carr to date. A great amp."

"I ended up loving the ’70s-era Marshall Guv'nor distortion after many Pro Co Rat years. But the input/output jacks disintegrate and nothing fits into those big holes left after that plastic decays."

Played backstage live stream 2021 tour

Nels Cline uses a Fulltone Deja Vibe pedal. "I love the Deja Vibe," Cline says at (25:40).

Cline uses an Electro-Harmonix Ring Modulator - the Ring thing. "It also does harmonizer things," he said at (33:35).

Nels says of Boss DD-3, "The Keeley modifications provide some "warmer" delay effects choices while I am still able to get my old DD-3 weirdness happening (as in, really fast, heavy repeat-laden, digital-sounding, electro spazz-outs that I can cut on and off with no trail off). And, of course, I can get simple, tasteful bounce. I can get by with a plain old DD-3, too, but the Keeley one is just a bit better."

In this video, Nels Cline tells the story of why he started playing a Gibson Barney Kessel. It turns out Jeff Tweedy is a lover of this guitar and he had some around the Wilco loft, prompting Nels to try it and like it enough to buy one.

"I just got a 1959 Gibson Crest that is marvelous. Little amps record big, as we know."

"I have a Raleigh but have never played out with it."